CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 185 km round trip from Kronstadt - roughly 3 h 03 in the saddle. On the way it passes Ropshinskoe Highway, Dudergof, Historical Centre of the Town of Pavlovsk and back through Dudergof. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 36 km this is Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Kronstadt town has a face turned to the sea and a back turned to the mainland, and Southern Battery No. 1 stands on the southern shore of Kotlin Island, a few kilometres from the old harbour. It is one of the earth-and-brick gun batteries that formed part of the maritime fortress, built to protect the capital against any fleet that dared to enter the gulf. The island was fortified by Peter the Great, who founded the base here in the early eighteenth century, and it remained one of the great naval stations of the Russian empire.
Read the complete Southern battery No. 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Southern battery No. 1 is where the day begins. Next is Ropshinskoe Highway.
Ropshinskoe Highway is the road that leaves the Gulf of Finland behind at Peterhof and climbs gently south towards Ropsha, and for a ride that starts and ends here it is a good place to look at a map and understand the ground. You are on the edge of the Izhora upland, a low limestone step above the coast. It never looks like much from the saddle, a few tens of metres of rise through birch and pine, but in this flat country that step decided who could see whom, and that mattered enormously in the last century.
Read the complete Ropshinskoe Highway write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ropshinskoe Highway comes up about 36 km into the recorded legs. Next is Dudergof.
South-west of St Petersburg, the flat land of the Neva lowland rises unexpectedly into a pair of wooded hills, the Duderhof heights, the highest ground for many kilometres around. Their name comes from Finnish, and they have long been a landmark, used for military observation since the eighteenth century and as a summer retreat for the people of the capital. In the nineteenth century, the imperial army held its summer manoeuvres around nearby Krasnoye Selo, and the officers' villas and parade grounds became part of the social life of St Petersburg.
Read the complete Dudergof write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 67 km into the recorded legs you reach Dudergof. Next is Historical Centre of the Town of Pavlovsk.
Pavlovsk was a gift. In 1777 Catherine the Great gave her son Paul, the future emperor, a stretch of forest and meadow south of Saint Petersburg, and he and his wife Maria Feodorovna turned it into one of the most elegant country residences in Russia. The Scottish architect Charles Cameron designed the palace, a pale yellow building with a shallow dome and a colonnade, and the park, which spreads over some six hundred hectares, was laid out in the English landscape manner, with winding paths, little bridges and pavilions half hidden among the trees. It is among the largest landscape parks in Europe, and walking in it on a quiet morning is a joy.
Read the complete Historical Centre of the Town of Pavlovsk write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historical Centre of the Town of Pavlovsk, about halfway. Next is back through Dudergof.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dudergof write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Dudergof sits at 99 km, about halfway. Next is back through Ropshinskoe Highway.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ropshinskoe Highway write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ropshinskoe Highway comes up about 155 km into the recorded legs. Next is Southern battery No. 1, 25 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Southern battery No. 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Southern battery No. 1 closes the day.
Southern battery No. 1 → Ropshinskoe Highway is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ropshinskoe Highway → Dudergof is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Dudergof → Historical Centre of the Town of Pavlovsk is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historical Centre of the Town of Pavlovsk → back through Dudergof is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Dudergof → back through Ropshinskoe Highway is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ropshinskoe Highway → Southern battery No. 1 is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.